Further to Julians report, I was out on a boat in a fishing competition from 0730 - 1800 this evening. I have to admit I wasn’t particularly concentrating on the passing avifauna for long periods of time but at 1610hrs I had a westbound Arctic Skua between Porlock and Glenthorne, it would have passed Hurlestone at around 1600hrs. We moved up channel to Grenaliegh, close to Minehead and at around 1645hrs I saw 2 Arctics and a Pom flying together, they were a fair way out and I would guess anyone watching at Minehead might have just about picked them up as dark specs with Binoculars and would have needed to Scope them to confirm they were Skuas.

As it was it worked out rather well! This morning (17th) a watch off Minehead 0640-0900 produced 4 Arctic Skuas, 2 or 3 Bonxies and a Pom. But this was just the hors d’oeuvre for this afternoon’s session (1345-1545), which produced:

Long-tailed Skua 2 sub-adults, at 1410 and 1444, both with small flocks of Arctics
Pomarine Skua 2 adults, at 1444 and 1448
Arctic Skua 30 (or possibly 32) - mostly dark phase birds, but also 5 light phase adults, a sub-adult and 3 (poss 4) gingery juveniles - flocks of 7, 5, and 4 as well as twos and singles

This morning’s birds were mostly distant, but those this afternoon generally much closer. Some of the Arctics (and the first Long-tailed) settled on the sea for short periods, but all birds, as expected, came in from the east and headed off west. Strangely, no Bonxies seen this afternoon, despite four pairs of eyes checking out different distances and heights.

Conditions for Sunday look helpful, if not as good as for today, as the wind in the North Sea is moderating down considerably, though still northerly. If you do try tomorrow, don’t expect these kinds of numbers, and which species occur is a bit of a lottery, but there should at least be some skuas, especially early morning.

A juvenile Long-tailed Skua flew back east at Minehead this morning at 07:00, probably more unusual because of the direction it was going. Then between 07:00 and 7:40 a total of 7 Great and 2 Arctic Skuas all flew west. After this and up until 08:45 there were no more skuas.
Also from here only 2 Fulmars, 5 Common Scoter and a Guillemot.
The weather forecast tomorrow looks good for overland skua passage with cloud and rain over the SE encouraging birds to move across from the east - but it doesn’t always work out as you expect!